Tomorrow night I'll be packing my wardrobe trunk. Here it is with my "roommate" Jonathan Sherwin.
Jonathan is my oldest friend in the Orchestra and was the best man at my wedding! Here he is wedged between his contrabassoon and the wardrobe trunk. Each of us gets 2 1/2 drawers plus space in the area with hangers.
These must be loaded after Saturday's concert because they will be shipped out to Indiana that night by our hard-working stagehands. I will also pack my bassoon and send it in our instrument trunk. We have room for four bassoons, a contrabassoon, reed tools, and music in that one.
One of the amenities we enjoy when on tour is our Nespresso machine. It goes along with us on domestic tours. Foreign tours proved too arduous for its previous model when a power surge in the locker room of the Musikverein in Vienna fried its circuitry!
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I have a question about the logistics of touring, since you mentioned that your bassoon would be travelling ahead of the orchestra - how much of a chance do you get to practice while on the road? Is there a routine you follow while touring to stay in playing shape, or is it mostly in pre-tour preparation, or both?
ReplyDeleteIt was a pleasure hearing the orchestra in Bloomington on Tuesday night - my first time hearing Cleveland live, hopefully the first of many.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteOne more comment: I have to be careful if I have a rehearsal or concert not related to Cleveland Orchesta -- say a quintet concert on the day we get back or sometimes the day after we get back.
If I pack my bassoon in the instrument trunk, it may not arrive until the day after we get home!
On an international tour, this is problematic, because if you pack your instrument going over,you must pack it coming back to the US or Customs gets very upset!!
This all has to be figured out well in advance.